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BP well in Gulf of Mexico declared dead

LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) — Five months after it started spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico, BP PLC’s rogue Macondo oil well located a mile below the surface officially was declared dead Sunday.

Retired Coast Guard Admiral. Thad Allen, head of the joint task force that oversaw the capping of the well and current cleanup efforts, issued a statement saying that pressure tests on the cement cap from the relief well was completed at 5:54 a.m. Central time. Allen declared the well “effectively dead.”

“Additional regulatory steps will be undertaken but we can now state, definitively, that the Macondo well poses no continuing threat to the Gulf of Mexico,” Allen said in a press release.

BP well In Gulf ‘effectively dead'

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U.S. government says Deepwater Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico has been killed.

Allen said the plugging of the well, which actually occurred more than two miles below the ocean floor or 18,000 feet beneath the ocean’s surface, was confirmed by the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

The spill started on April 20, when the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig commissioned by BP
BP, -0.50%
and operated by Transocean Energy
RIG, +3.91%
exploded into a fireball, killing 11 workers. The disaster severed pipelines between the floating rig and the ocean floor, ultimately releasing more than 4 million gallons of oil into gulf waters, the largest such spill in U.S. history.

Allen said the task force will continue to monitor cleanup efforts. The spill ruined the fortunes of a number of coastal businesses, primarily in Louisiana, most prominently the state’s formidable seafood industry. The region’s lucrative deepwater drilling also is threatened by a federally mandated moratorium on such activities until further precautions are taken to deal with blowouts far below the ocean’s surface.

President Obama issued a written statement Sunday vowing to help those affected by the spill. “This road will not be easy, but we will continue to work closely with the people of the Gulf to rebuild their livelihoods and restore the environment that supports them,” Obama said. “My administration will see our communities, our businesses and our fragile ecosystems through this difficult time.”

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